Attachment

• In attachment research, we need to use the observational technique, because babies can’t self-report .
• Frame-by-frame video analysis leads to more reliable observations and is when researchers record behaviours of participants with a camera and make detailed observations of each frame.
• A longitudinal study is when a researcher investigates the same participants at multiple timepoints to see how they change over time.
• Some strengths of longitudinal studies is that they lead to more reliable results than non-longitudinal studies, they enable us to get deeper insights into behaviour by seeing how behaviour changes over time, they give us insights into how early experiences shape behaviour later in life and enable us to establish whether results are reliable across time.
• Two strengths of conducting a longitudinal study are it allows researchers to gain deeper insights into behaviour and how it changes over time and it gives researchers insights into how early experiences shape behaviour.
• Attrition is when, across the study, the researcher loses some of their participants from the sample.
• Researchers can’t use a laboratory experiment to investigate whether being deprived of a mother affects a child’s anxiety levels growing up because it would be unethical to manipulate the independent variabke
• When researchers can’t directly manipulate an independent variable, they can use other types of experiments called quasi or natural experiments
• A problem with natural and quasi experiments is we can’t control all of the extraneous variables that could influence the dependent variable and can't directly test cause and effect
• Other attachment researchers also conduct animal studies so they can directly manipulate independent variables. Just like we’ve already seen in the behaviourist approach
• Attachment researchers often conduct natural or quasi experiments.
• Attachment researchers often study independent variables that are unethical to manipulate.
• If they want to directly manipulate an independent variable, an alternative is to conduct animal studies
• Animal studies might not be generalisable as We can’t always be sure that humans would behave in the same way as animals.
•  Some researchers design animal studies because performing similar studies on humans would be unethical.
• Animal studies might be considered unethical as they might cause distress to the animal.
• And if we argue that the studies don’t cause distress to the animals, then we’re implying that animals are very different to humans, which limits the generalisability  of the findings.
• it can be argued The benefits of the research outweigh the negative impacts of the research.
•   Even if animals are quite different to humans, they have sufficiently similar behaviours and genes for the results to still be valid.
• The first stage of attachment is the pre-attachment stage. It occurs when babies are 0-3 months or 0 to 3 months or up to 3 months old.
• The second stage of attachment is the indiscriminate attachment stage. It occurs when babies are 3-7 months or 3 to 7 months old.
• The pre-attachment stage is the first 3 months of a baby’s life and in this stage, babies show no preference for any adult.
• The indiscriminate attachment stage begins at around 3 months of age, in this stage babies begin to prefer familiar people bur dont yet form a strong attachment to one familiar person
• The third stage of attachment is the discriminate attachment or specific attachment stage. It occurs when babies are 7-9 months or 7 to 9 months old.
• The fourth stage of attachment is the multiple attachment stage. It occurs from 9 months .
• If a baby cries and gets upset when they’re taken away from their caregiver, they are displaying separation anxiety
• When babies cry and get upset when they’re around unfamiliar people, they are displaying stranger anxiety
• Schaffer and Emerson conducted a naturalistic observation and longitudinal study
• Schaffer and Emerson assessed whether babies displayed separation anxiety by observing the babies’ behaviour when they were taken away from their caregivers.
• Schaffer and Emerson assessed whether babies displayed stranger anxiety by observing the babies’ behaviour when they were in the presence of strangers.
• Schaffer and Emerson conducted a longitudinal study, using a naturalistic observation. They followed 60 babies and their families from birth to 18 months.Babies were observed in the presence of strangers to assess stranger anxiety, and when their caregivers were removed to assess separation anxiety.
• Schaffer and Emerson found evidence for the four stages of attachment, 87% of babies formed attachment with two or more caregivers
• Schaffer and Emerson found that babies formed stronger attachments if caregivers displayed high sensitive responsiveness
• In Schaffer and emersons research, The families were observed in the places where they usually interacted; at home, in the shops or in the park. this means that the results were more likely to have ecological validity and generalise to how babies and their caregivers behave in everyday life
• observer bias is the tendency for researchers to see what they expect when conducting observations
• One weakness of using the interview technique is that the participants may give inaccurate answers that they think are socially desirable, to avoid being judged negatively. We call this social desirability bias
• A weakness of the study is that the research may have been prone to observer bias.
•   The researchers conducted interviews with families to assess their opinions on their relationship with the baby.
• In the Schaffer and Emerson study, there was no report of the time it took for babies to form their first attachment.
• The Schaffer and Emerson study was a longitudinal study, which means that researchers can see how the attachments and behaviours changed over time. It is likely that they had little control over the extraneous variables, because the study was naturalistic and observational. Also, they had a relatively large sample size, meaning they could get valid results.